The links are public. Enjoy!
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
First Rwanda Photos
Here's a snapshot of my new life here in Rwanda (and a few pictures from the Stomping Out Malaria in Africa Bootcamp in Senegal):
Monday, May 28, 2012
First Impressions
Rwanda is an incredibly beautiful place. Granted I haven’t seen much of it, but what I’ve seen doesn’t disappoint. Everything is green; there are flowers everywhere; it rains every day. That’s not to say that this climate isn’t without its problems; there has been a lot of rain this year, causing minor landslides and washed out roads. Once a month Rwandans participate in a day of mandatory community service called Umuganda. At least one person from each household has to participate, and while I think foreigners are exempt, Peace Corps encourages volunteers to join in. Last week we helped dig hillside ditches to prevent any more landslides in the area.
Politically and socially, Rwanda has its act together a lot more than I would have thought for a post-conflict developing country. Coming from Mali, the differences are stark. Umuganda is a prime example. And in addition to the climate differences that makes Rwanda more beautiful than many places, there are laws and policies in place to reduce negative human impact on the environment. Trash piles are unheard of and plastic bags are outlawed. We’ve also spent a lot of time in training learning about the Rwandan healthcare system, and it seems to function much better than the Malian system. They have met some of the WHO standards, for what that’s worth.
Peace Corps Rwanda was closed in the ’90s and reopened in 2009, so the program is essentially brand new. That comes with struggles. It’s been interesting to see how different Peace Corps can be in two countries that are relatively similar. Training is different and service is different, as are volunteer relations, experiences, and problems. Because of Rwanda’s complicated history, people here are a lot more reserved, and it’s harder for volunteers to integrate with and relate to their host country partners. While in Mali most medical issues are physical, here, they are mental.
I’ve been in training for a week and a half, focusing on language, culture, and the health system. I’m staying at the training center outside of Kigali and will be here for another week. There was a training group that came in the week before me, so I’ve joined some of their sessions and am trying to catch up with what they’ve learned. Twice a week they come to the center for lessons on culture, medical issues, the healthcare system, safety, and so on. While the other trainees live with homestay families, I stay at the center with the staff. I’ve taken both private language lessons with the staff and participated in the trainees’ classes. I’m hoping to learn as much Kinyarwanda as I knew Bambara: enough to greet, get around, and buy things at markets without people hating me. I think I’m making decent progress.
There is also a group of people here that have made me feel better about Mali’s evacuation by virtue of having experienced one themselves. There are three volunteers in this training class who were evacuated from Kazakhstan last year, nine months into their services, and decided to start again here. One of the doctors for Peace Corps Rwanda used to work for Peace Corps Niger; he actually gave us students a medical introduction to Niger during our first week in Niamey. Even better, the Rwanda staff also brought in a training consultant who worked for Peace Corps Niger for 19 years and is here for a few months to help improve Rwanda’s pre-service training program. Having worked for Peace Corps in West Africa, they both understand where I’m coming from and what moving here has been like for me. Meeting them has shown me that good work can go on even after a country has evacuated, thanks to the volunteers and staff who keep going. The reopening of Peace Corps Rwanda and the country’s recovery from the genocide shows that nothing bad has to be permanent. A closure doesn’t mean that the program can’t reopen, and that while it is hard to rebound, it’s not impossible. Volunteers and trainees have put up with a lot of what staff like to call “growing pains”. While it’s hard, it also feels rewarding to know that we are (hopefully) helping set the stage for a great future for Peace Corps Rwanda, and are a part of something bigger than ourselves. (That said, I’m only a guinea pig for a few weeks.)
As far as Rwanda’s growth since the genocide, most people would say the country has come pretty far. I’m still learning about its history and how things work now, but I know that the current president has made a lot of progress for the country in a short amount of time. Some say it’s too much, too fast. Much of the support provided to the healthcare system, for example, in the forms of drugs and trainings, still comes from abroad. But the government holds its people a lot more accountable for their actions here than I could’ve thought, much moreso than in Mali. Funding for health centers is in part performance-based, and most Rwandans have health insurance, the poorest of whose premiums are paid.
While progress is being made, things are by no means perfect. Every village and person in this country was affected by the genocide. People who committed genocide crimes are still living side by side with people who lost their entire families, and everyone who was alive at the time know exactly who is who. Many families have taken in children that were orphaned in the genocide. An anonymous person or persons has been throwing grenades in Kigali to remind people that everything is not as fine as it seems. In areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo that are near Rwanda, there is still fighting and killing between ethnic groups. With that in mind, it amazes me that people are as friendly and as happy as they are.
As with my experience in Mali, I didn’t much know what I was getting myself into by moving here, and it has already surpassed my expectations. I had no idea how beautiful and historied place could be, and I am grateful and glad for the experience. There’s still a lot to learn, and while living in the capital gives one an arguably diluted cultural experience, I am looking forward to getting started. Once I finish with my training here I am going to Senegal for ten days for the Peace Corps Malaria Boot Camp. Peace Corps’ Stomp Out Malaria Initiative is largely volunteer-run and exists in around 17 malaria endemic countries in Africa. Once a year, each country send its SOM volunteers to the conference for technical training and to learn about the program and how it functions in other countries. Many of these volunteers will likely be doing a job similar to the one I’m about to start; the assignment is a little different in each country. I’ll be working for a USAID program called the President’s Malaria Initiative, which exists in many malaria endemic countries. There is another volunteer who served in Rwanda that I will be working with, but I don’t know much about the job as of yet, or where exactly I’ll be living. If you want to learn more about these programs, you can visit pmi.gov or stompoutmalaria.org.
Politically and socially, Rwanda has its act together a lot more than I would have thought for a post-conflict developing country. Coming from Mali, the differences are stark. Umuganda is a prime example. And in addition to the climate differences that makes Rwanda more beautiful than many places, there are laws and policies in place to reduce negative human impact on the environment. Trash piles are unheard of and plastic bags are outlawed. We’ve also spent a lot of time in training learning about the Rwandan healthcare system, and it seems to function much better than the Malian system. They have met some of the WHO standards, for what that’s worth.
Peace Corps Rwanda was closed in the ’90s and reopened in 2009, so the program is essentially brand new. That comes with struggles. It’s been interesting to see how different Peace Corps can be in two countries that are relatively similar. Training is different and service is different, as are volunteer relations, experiences, and problems. Because of Rwanda’s complicated history, people here are a lot more reserved, and it’s harder for volunteers to integrate with and relate to their host country partners. While in Mali most medical issues are physical, here, they are mental.
I’ve been in training for a week and a half, focusing on language, culture, and the health system. I’m staying at the training center outside of Kigali and will be here for another week. There was a training group that came in the week before me, so I’ve joined some of their sessions and am trying to catch up with what they’ve learned. Twice a week they come to the center for lessons on culture, medical issues, the healthcare system, safety, and so on. While the other trainees live with homestay families, I stay at the center with the staff. I’ve taken both private language lessons with the staff and participated in the trainees’ classes. I’m hoping to learn as much Kinyarwanda as I knew Bambara: enough to greet, get around, and buy things at markets without people hating me. I think I’m making decent progress.
There is also a group of people here that have made me feel better about Mali’s evacuation by virtue of having experienced one themselves. There are three volunteers in this training class who were evacuated from Kazakhstan last year, nine months into their services, and decided to start again here. One of the doctors for Peace Corps Rwanda used to work for Peace Corps Niger; he actually gave us students a medical introduction to Niger during our first week in Niamey. Even better, the Rwanda staff also brought in a training consultant who worked for Peace Corps Niger for 19 years and is here for a few months to help improve Rwanda’s pre-service training program. Having worked for Peace Corps in West Africa, they both understand where I’m coming from and what moving here has been like for me. Meeting them has shown me that good work can go on even after a country has evacuated, thanks to the volunteers and staff who keep going. The reopening of Peace Corps Rwanda and the country’s recovery from the genocide shows that nothing bad has to be permanent. A closure doesn’t mean that the program can’t reopen, and that while it is hard to rebound, it’s not impossible. Volunteers and trainees have put up with a lot of what staff like to call “growing pains”. While it’s hard, it also feels rewarding to know that we are (hopefully) helping set the stage for a great future for Peace Corps Rwanda, and are a part of something bigger than ourselves. (That said, I’m only a guinea pig for a few weeks.)
As far as Rwanda’s growth since the genocide, most people would say the country has come pretty far. I’m still learning about its history and how things work now, but I know that the current president has made a lot of progress for the country in a short amount of time. Some say it’s too much, too fast. Much of the support provided to the healthcare system, for example, in the forms of drugs and trainings, still comes from abroad. But the government holds its people a lot more accountable for their actions here than I could’ve thought, much moreso than in Mali. Funding for health centers is in part performance-based, and most Rwandans have health insurance, the poorest of whose premiums are paid.
While progress is being made, things are by no means perfect. Every village and person in this country was affected by the genocide. People who committed genocide crimes are still living side by side with people who lost their entire families, and everyone who was alive at the time know exactly who is who. Many families have taken in children that were orphaned in the genocide. An anonymous person or persons has been throwing grenades in Kigali to remind people that everything is not as fine as it seems. In areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo that are near Rwanda, there is still fighting and killing between ethnic groups. With that in mind, it amazes me that people are as friendly and as happy as they are.
As with my experience in Mali, I didn’t much know what I was getting myself into by moving here, and it has already surpassed my expectations. I had no idea how beautiful and historied place could be, and I am grateful and glad for the experience. There’s still a lot to learn, and while living in the capital gives one an arguably diluted cultural experience, I am looking forward to getting started. Once I finish with my training here I am going to Senegal for ten days for the Peace Corps Malaria Boot Camp. Peace Corps’ Stomp Out Malaria Initiative is largely volunteer-run and exists in around 17 malaria endemic countries in Africa. Once a year, each country send its SOM volunteers to the conference for technical training and to learn about the program and how it functions in other countries. Many of these volunteers will likely be doing a job similar to the one I’m about to start; the assignment is a little different in each country. I’ll be working for a USAID program called the President’s Malaria Initiative, which exists in many malaria endemic countries. There is another volunteer who served in Rwanda that I will be working with, but I don’t know much about the job as of yet, or where exactly I’ll be living. If you want to learn more about these programs, you can visit pmi.gov or stompoutmalaria.org.
It Could Happen
During my month home, and before, and even now, people have asked me, “What happened?” For such a short question, its answer is long, but here’s my best shot at explaining what happened to Mali, Peace Corps, “us”, and most vainly, me.
In one sentence: Mali has become increasingly dangerous in recent years. Only a few years ago, volunteers were living in cities and regions that are now near-war zones. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has made its presence clear many times over, dramatically so several times in the last two years. Activity in the Sahara is impossible to control; the clash between the Arab Northern Africa and black West Africa doesn’t help. The Tuareg people of the Sahara (as native as one can be to a desert) have been trying to claim the land that they feel is rightfully theirs, split up decades ago by culturally ignorant colonial powers but contentious even before then. They hope to take the north of Mali as their own state, known as Azawad; it includes part of the region of Mopti, where numerous volunteers served. In short, things in the desert and its environs have been unstable since before the time of Peace Corps, and will be so for a long time to come. It’s not just Mali, though. Foreigners were kidnapped from a bar in the capital of Niger and killed last year; this is a bar popular with both Peace Corps Volunteers and BU Niger students, and is one I’d visited during my time there. So, BU Niger and Peace Corps Niger were no more. Peace Corps programs have also been closed in Chad, Mauritania, Guinea, and Sierra Leone within the last several years. And sadly, Peace Corps closures are really just the tip of the iceberg. The region has a long way to go.
So, in March, this fighting proved too much for Mali. As conflicts escalated in the north, Malians grew increasingly frustrated with the government’s lack of action and lack of support of the military’s effort to combat them. Civilians were angered, too, and while they might not have known exactly what was happening up north, most people have family all over the country as well as a strong national pride; their concern grew from there. Demonstrations and protests against the government’s choices and inaction started outside Bamako and escalated into a military coup. The president at the time, Amadou Toumani Touré (affectionately referred to as ATT), disappeared; the constitution was suspended; and the militia’s Captain Sanogo took power. He’s still there. ATT is meant to help lead the transition to a new government. I believe a new Parliament has been put into place, but the country is still without a president. Foreign aid was almost entirely suspended.The US Embassy was temporarily closed, and all non-necessary American staff left even before Peace Corps.
A lot of experts, for a long time, said that Mali was a prime example of a successful African democracy. Things seem to be getting better, but who knows if they will get worse again before the country recovers? And if a successful regime can be so quickly overthrown, what does that say about the stability of African politics and leadership? A new president may come, but one new leader will not likely be able to convince the Tuareg rebels that they should give up hope of having their own state. I don’t know what it will take, but it’s certain to take a long time.
Peace Corps staff worked hard not evacuate us, but in the end, they had no choice. Life in most volunteers’ villages didn’t change, but borders were closing, banks were out of money, the airport closed, civilians were fleeing the north, and war crimes were being committed. People were and are dying. To you and me, Peace Corps’ evacuation seems like a shame. And it is. A lot of good work got dropped. If Peace Corps reopens, it will have a lot of catching up to do. But it’s not closed yet. The office is still full, although the staff’s job descriptions have changed quite a bit in the last six weeks. They will be reassessing the situation soon. I hope I don’t get in trouble for writing any of this; I’ve tried not to be too biased. Something I’m slightly more qualified to discuss is my version of my last three weeks in Mali:
The weeks before I left site had seen both highs and lows, just like any other time during service. The issues with my new neighbors had gotten significantly worse, but I was working through them, because my real work was moving forward. Our health center had just introduced a new form of growth measurement to the community. Our community health volunteers were trained by health center staff to measure children’s upper arms, a system used worldwide to determine if a child is malnourished. The verdict depends on the circumference of the child’s arm, and the measuring band used is designed to work on kids aged six months to five years. The community health volunteers were happy because a lot of mothers brought their kids to be measured the day it was introduced, and most of these kids were deemed healthy. The system was new to us, and while it was clear to me how ineffective the process is, the staff were proud to be doing their job. As I sat watching them work with the kids, I couldn’t help being reminded of how poor Malians’ nutrition and overall health are, and how the healthcare system in its current state is pretty much unable to help. This tool was proof enough. These kids’ arms were fat enough to merit their names being put in the safe zone column, but if you looked at their bellies, it was clear they were malnourished. Even so, these parents are given the green light, told they’re doing the right thing, and sent on their ways. And for the rare kid who is so undernourished that his or her arm measurement falls into the danger zone, a name gets written in a book to be sent to the bosses in Segou (five hours away). They don’t get any counseling or treatment at that moment, and their names are soon forgotten. I doubt they will ever get the help they need. The health center staff does what they’re told; nothing more, nothing less. They do this measurement to get numbers to Segou, and then to Bamako. It’s not about the kids; it’s about the government’s reputation with the WHO and the reports they fill out.
And while I was sitting on the bench watching kids get measured, the Peace Corps staff member in charge of the health program called me with some good news: my third year project application was moving forward. It had been due that week; I had requested to be placed with a USAID program called ATN Plus, which was working to monitor the work of certain rural health centers, covering every region in Mali, and to improve the quality of their services. Claudine’s phone call came at what seemed like the perfect time. While I was participating in an activity that got me listing in my head all the ways that the rural health system needed to improve if it was really going to make a difference, she called to tell me that she was approving my request to begin working for an organization that was committed to making sure that happened. She read me the job description and told me she was sending my application to our Country Director for final approval. My next step was on the way, and I was looking forward. Much of USAID in Mali is now on hiatus.
That same week, the San volunteers had also been preparing for a girls’ empowerment camp that was going to be held in two weeks. It had been in the works for months, and was in the final stages of planning. Each volunteer chose two seventh grade girls to attend the camp, a five-day event in San. I had just found mine after asking them to write an essay on the importance of girls’ education. I took them to the tailor that week to get their uniforms made and had found a friend to chaperone them during the camp. Other volunteers had found professional women in San to speak to the girls about their jobs, and what it means for a woman to be educated. The girls were going to learn about all the job opportunities that would be open to them if they completed school, a rare thing for girls in Mali. The female volunteers were going to do activities with them to teach them communication and teamwork. It’s a great project that has been done numerous times in other areas of Mali but was a first for San. Who knows what good it would have done, because it never happened.
The day before the coup, I gave a presentation at the health center on improved porridge. Even though I always found these presentations a little scary, they always made me feel good about what I was doing in Fangasso. The next morning I got a text from another PCV telling me that an attempted coup had taken place overnight, and it seemed like a joke when everything else was business as usual. Later in the morning, someone from the health center came by to say hello, and we talked about the coup and what it meant to Malians. His opinion was that Malians were in favor of it and glad that someone had taken action. Peace Corps called soon after to inform us all what had happened, in vague detail, and to make sure that we did not leave our villages until we heard from them again. In Peace Corps safety and security jargon, this is called standfast, and is something all volunteers learn about in training and soon forget because never in 40 years of Peace Corps Mali has this happened.
That was the morning of Thursday the 22nd. Life in Fangasso hadn’t changed at all. Many people in village were not even aware of what had happened. But things were happening elsewhere, and quickly. I was at my friend Marc’s house on Friday afternoon when I got a five-page text message from Peace Corps saying that every volunteer needed to report to their regional house as soon as possible on Saturday. While I was technically at Marc’s house for an English lesson, we had actually spent a lot of time speculating about the futures of Peace Corps and Mali. He kept telling me not to worry, and I kept insisting that things were going to get worse before they got better. A few minutes later the text came.
Peace Corps told us to pack for a few days, and said that we would hopefully be able to return to our sites the next Tuesday. I took this at face value, until I talked to three other volunteers in San who were convinced that this was code for “you are being sent home”. So I packed up all the things I would have wanted to take home with me, and asked Maimouna if I could borrow the family horse cart to take my two suitcases and bike to the road the next morning. I had to leave first thing, and there was no time to say goodbye. I also didn’t believe that we wouldn’t be coming back. So I told “my” people that Peace Corps was forcing us all to come in, that it wasn’t my choice, that I wasn’t leaving for good, and that I would keep them updated. On Saturday morning two of my favorite boys drove me to the road. I sat there for five hours waiting for a bus; this was a record and a sign that something was really wrong. I had never waited more than two. It took me another three hours to reach San (again, usually a one-hour trip) and I didn’t get to the house until it was almost dark. The gravity of things didn’t really hit me until I saw the looks on the other volunteers’ faces. You could see the sadness. And even then, I still didn’t want to believe that we were going home. We didn’t know for sure for more than a week. So we handled ourselves that night as per San tradition: dancing.
The fifteen of us were holed up (“coup-ed up”, what have you) in San for ten days. We’d get a call every few days telling us to hang tight, that we’d get another assessment from Peace Corps in a couple days. The messages were always positive. They didn’t want to force us to go home; I believe that in the beginning, the staff still thought there was a chance that things would go back to normal. While in hindsight, that was clearly impossible, it didn’t seem so cut and dry at the time. Morale was low and after awhile it felt like Peace Corps was stringing us along towards an inevitable decision. But it’s not a decision to be made lightly, so in the end, I guess it proved better to take one’s time than to make a rash and expensive decision.
The San house is not big, but at least we were allowed to go outside. Not everyone had that luxury. Volunteers in Bamako, for example, were not even allowed to leave the house for food because of gunshots, looting, and protests in the area. In San we passed the time by going to the pool, going to the San theater, biking to the stadium to play Frisbee, and eating. A lot. If it sounds like it wasn’t so bad, don’t be fooled. We weren’t getting much information from Peace Corps, either about the state of the nation or of Peace Corps. But what seemed like every five seconds someone would do a Google search for the latest information. For some, it was really important to know what was happening on any given day. I just tried to tune them out until we knew something concrete.
On April 1st, the volunteers in Mopti (the region just north of San) were sent to Bamako. Peace Corps had received news that the trouble was moving south, and that these volunteers were being moved as a precaution. Everyone received an email saying that all other volunteers could return to site for at least two days. That seemed wrong to me; my site was only 20 kilometers south of some Mopti volunteers. I didn’t want to travel on a bus on the road heading north, straight into the danger zone. I felt bad for not wanting to run back to site. But an hour later we got another call saying that our region was excluded from this offer, and that we still had to stay put. Problem solved. But it seemed to us that this call sealed our fate: the volunteers in safer regions were being allowed to return to site to say goodbye and collect their things. We weren’t being afforded this.
The next afternoon we got a call saying we needed to come into Bamako. Not every region got this call, so there was still some doubt. But we packed as much as we could and bought our bus tickets for the next day. We had one last meal together and took some group pictures the last minute. It still wasn’t official yet. Peace Corps vehicles picked us up from the bus station in Bamako, and within a few hours of our arrival, we got an email from our Country Director informing us that we were being evacuated. We stayed at our training center until Sunday, when we flew to Ghana for a transition conference. Peace Corps had to charter a plane for us because there were no commercial flights.
We stayed in Ghana for a week, preparing documents and filling out forms to officially end our services in Mali. For some of us, though, there was more to be done. In Mali, we were told that we would all be going straight home, and that if we wanted to continue our work with Peace Corps, we would have to reapply from home. But once we got to Ghana, our conference facilitator told us that the folks in Washington had found nearly 100 positions open to us around the world. I knew I wasn’t done with Peace Corps and wanted something similar to what I would have been doing in Bamako with USAID. Of these hundred positions, only one fit the bill for me. We applicants were dragged along by conference staff quite a bit, first being discouraged from applying at all because priority was being given to younger training groups; being given inaccurate job descriptions; and having to interview over the phone while we were supposed to be in general sessions, therefore missing out on something else important. But now here I am, writing this from the Peace Corps Rwanda training center. So it worked out, even if that week is something I hope to never repeat. Some volunteers chose positions requiring them to move to their new countries directly from Ghana; others went home for awhile. Some are starting their two years over, training and all. Some people are planning to serve with Peace Corps Response, a program for returned volunteers interested in working with Peace Corps for the short term, usually around six months. And me, I flew home for vacation, paid for by Peace Corps. I was in Minnesota for a month, and now the next step is officially underway. Mali’s next step remains uncertain.
While I struggled in village far more than the average volunteer, I also think I loved Mali more than the average volunteer. I am so glad for what I experienced. All of it. Except for maybe the stealing and mean people. But being gone has given me some clarity, confirmed some beliefs, and I have few to no regrets. Things that bothered me then still bother me now, which tells me that they were worth being bothered about in the first place. In the interest of honesty, I will say that I was counting down the days, mostly figuratively but somewhat literally, until I left Fangasso and started my new job in September. Too much had happened in village for me to be completely happy there anymore. It’s not the lack of running water or electricity or resources that gets volunteers down, but how they are treated by their communities. And for me, that wasn’t there. There is a lot I do not miss, but a lot that I do. I believe that my time in in Peace Corps benefitted me more than it did the people of Mali. And while Malians don’t believe you when you tell them that, but I think every volunteer would agree.
Maybe most of all, I miss my children. As much as the adults in our villages can’t understand why we left, the kids understand it even less. And I just hope that something I did with them, or taught them, or a song I sang with them, sticks with them. And even if they don’t make it to high school, or master English, or fully understand why they need to wash their hands more often, I hope that I made a difference to them. They certainly made a difference to me. And to all the Peace Corps Mali staff and the Returned PCVs of Mali: thank you. Couldn’t have done it without you.
I reread some of my earliest blog posts periodically during my service and saw how green I was; and while sometimes they make me cringe a little, or sound like they were written by a different person (or maybe I just wish they were), they show me just how far I’ve come. My time in Mali was certainly not easy. Some things I’m ready to put behind me and out of my mind. But as hard as things were, I was not ready to be done. To be done learning, teaching, trying, succeeding, and failing. I hope that Mali recovers soon and emerges stronger than it was before. I am glad that its people want better lives for themselves and are not willing to settle for less. Violence happens but I hope peace comes. It is Peace Corps, after all.
In one sentence: Mali has become increasingly dangerous in recent years. Only a few years ago, volunteers were living in cities and regions that are now near-war zones. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has made its presence clear many times over, dramatically so several times in the last two years. Activity in the Sahara is impossible to control; the clash between the Arab Northern Africa and black West Africa doesn’t help. The Tuareg people of the Sahara (as native as one can be to a desert) have been trying to claim the land that they feel is rightfully theirs, split up decades ago by culturally ignorant colonial powers but contentious even before then. They hope to take the north of Mali as their own state, known as Azawad; it includes part of the region of Mopti, where numerous volunteers served. In short, things in the desert and its environs have been unstable since before the time of Peace Corps, and will be so for a long time to come. It’s not just Mali, though. Foreigners were kidnapped from a bar in the capital of Niger and killed last year; this is a bar popular with both Peace Corps Volunteers and BU Niger students, and is one I’d visited during my time there. So, BU Niger and Peace Corps Niger were no more. Peace Corps programs have also been closed in Chad, Mauritania, Guinea, and Sierra Leone within the last several years. And sadly, Peace Corps closures are really just the tip of the iceberg. The region has a long way to go.
So, in March, this fighting proved too much for Mali. As conflicts escalated in the north, Malians grew increasingly frustrated with the government’s lack of action and lack of support of the military’s effort to combat them. Civilians were angered, too, and while they might not have known exactly what was happening up north, most people have family all over the country as well as a strong national pride; their concern grew from there. Demonstrations and protests against the government’s choices and inaction started outside Bamako and escalated into a military coup. The president at the time, Amadou Toumani Touré (affectionately referred to as ATT), disappeared; the constitution was suspended; and the militia’s Captain Sanogo took power. He’s still there. ATT is meant to help lead the transition to a new government. I believe a new Parliament has been put into place, but the country is still without a president. Foreign aid was almost entirely suspended.The US Embassy was temporarily closed, and all non-necessary American staff left even before Peace Corps.
A lot of experts, for a long time, said that Mali was a prime example of a successful African democracy. Things seem to be getting better, but who knows if they will get worse again before the country recovers? And if a successful regime can be so quickly overthrown, what does that say about the stability of African politics and leadership? A new president may come, but one new leader will not likely be able to convince the Tuareg rebels that they should give up hope of having their own state. I don’t know what it will take, but it’s certain to take a long time.
Peace Corps staff worked hard not evacuate us, but in the end, they had no choice. Life in most volunteers’ villages didn’t change, but borders were closing, banks were out of money, the airport closed, civilians were fleeing the north, and war crimes were being committed. People were and are dying. To you and me, Peace Corps’ evacuation seems like a shame. And it is. A lot of good work got dropped. If Peace Corps reopens, it will have a lot of catching up to do. But it’s not closed yet. The office is still full, although the staff’s job descriptions have changed quite a bit in the last six weeks. They will be reassessing the situation soon. I hope I don’t get in trouble for writing any of this; I’ve tried not to be too biased. Something I’m slightly more qualified to discuss is my version of my last three weeks in Mali:
The weeks before I left site had seen both highs and lows, just like any other time during service. The issues with my new neighbors had gotten significantly worse, but I was working through them, because my real work was moving forward. Our health center had just introduced a new form of growth measurement to the community. Our community health volunteers were trained by health center staff to measure children’s upper arms, a system used worldwide to determine if a child is malnourished. The verdict depends on the circumference of the child’s arm, and the measuring band used is designed to work on kids aged six months to five years. The community health volunteers were happy because a lot of mothers brought their kids to be measured the day it was introduced, and most of these kids were deemed healthy. The system was new to us, and while it was clear to me how ineffective the process is, the staff were proud to be doing their job. As I sat watching them work with the kids, I couldn’t help being reminded of how poor Malians’ nutrition and overall health are, and how the healthcare system in its current state is pretty much unable to help. This tool was proof enough. These kids’ arms were fat enough to merit their names being put in the safe zone column, but if you looked at their bellies, it was clear they were malnourished. Even so, these parents are given the green light, told they’re doing the right thing, and sent on their ways. And for the rare kid who is so undernourished that his or her arm measurement falls into the danger zone, a name gets written in a book to be sent to the bosses in Segou (five hours away). They don’t get any counseling or treatment at that moment, and their names are soon forgotten. I doubt they will ever get the help they need. The health center staff does what they’re told; nothing more, nothing less. They do this measurement to get numbers to Segou, and then to Bamako. It’s not about the kids; it’s about the government’s reputation with the WHO and the reports they fill out.
And while I was sitting on the bench watching kids get measured, the Peace Corps staff member in charge of the health program called me with some good news: my third year project application was moving forward. It had been due that week; I had requested to be placed with a USAID program called ATN Plus, which was working to monitor the work of certain rural health centers, covering every region in Mali, and to improve the quality of their services. Claudine’s phone call came at what seemed like the perfect time. While I was participating in an activity that got me listing in my head all the ways that the rural health system needed to improve if it was really going to make a difference, she called to tell me that she was approving my request to begin working for an organization that was committed to making sure that happened. She read me the job description and told me she was sending my application to our Country Director for final approval. My next step was on the way, and I was looking forward. Much of USAID in Mali is now on hiatus.
That same week, the San volunteers had also been preparing for a girls’ empowerment camp that was going to be held in two weeks. It had been in the works for months, and was in the final stages of planning. Each volunteer chose two seventh grade girls to attend the camp, a five-day event in San. I had just found mine after asking them to write an essay on the importance of girls’ education. I took them to the tailor that week to get their uniforms made and had found a friend to chaperone them during the camp. Other volunteers had found professional women in San to speak to the girls about their jobs, and what it means for a woman to be educated. The girls were going to learn about all the job opportunities that would be open to them if they completed school, a rare thing for girls in Mali. The female volunteers were going to do activities with them to teach them communication and teamwork. It’s a great project that has been done numerous times in other areas of Mali but was a first for San. Who knows what good it would have done, because it never happened.
The day before the coup, I gave a presentation at the health center on improved porridge. Even though I always found these presentations a little scary, they always made me feel good about what I was doing in Fangasso. The next morning I got a text from another PCV telling me that an attempted coup had taken place overnight, and it seemed like a joke when everything else was business as usual. Later in the morning, someone from the health center came by to say hello, and we talked about the coup and what it meant to Malians. His opinion was that Malians were in favor of it and glad that someone had taken action. Peace Corps called soon after to inform us all what had happened, in vague detail, and to make sure that we did not leave our villages until we heard from them again. In Peace Corps safety and security jargon, this is called standfast, and is something all volunteers learn about in training and soon forget because never in 40 years of Peace Corps Mali has this happened.
That was the morning of Thursday the 22nd. Life in Fangasso hadn’t changed at all. Many people in village were not even aware of what had happened. But things were happening elsewhere, and quickly. I was at my friend Marc’s house on Friday afternoon when I got a five-page text message from Peace Corps saying that every volunteer needed to report to their regional house as soon as possible on Saturday. While I was technically at Marc’s house for an English lesson, we had actually spent a lot of time speculating about the futures of Peace Corps and Mali. He kept telling me not to worry, and I kept insisting that things were going to get worse before they got better. A few minutes later the text came.
Peace Corps told us to pack for a few days, and said that we would hopefully be able to return to our sites the next Tuesday. I took this at face value, until I talked to three other volunteers in San who were convinced that this was code for “you are being sent home”. So I packed up all the things I would have wanted to take home with me, and asked Maimouna if I could borrow the family horse cart to take my two suitcases and bike to the road the next morning. I had to leave first thing, and there was no time to say goodbye. I also didn’t believe that we wouldn’t be coming back. So I told “my” people that Peace Corps was forcing us all to come in, that it wasn’t my choice, that I wasn’t leaving for good, and that I would keep them updated. On Saturday morning two of my favorite boys drove me to the road. I sat there for five hours waiting for a bus; this was a record and a sign that something was really wrong. I had never waited more than two. It took me another three hours to reach San (again, usually a one-hour trip) and I didn’t get to the house until it was almost dark. The gravity of things didn’t really hit me until I saw the looks on the other volunteers’ faces. You could see the sadness. And even then, I still didn’t want to believe that we were going home. We didn’t know for sure for more than a week. So we handled ourselves that night as per San tradition: dancing.
The fifteen of us were holed up (“coup-ed up”, what have you) in San for ten days. We’d get a call every few days telling us to hang tight, that we’d get another assessment from Peace Corps in a couple days. The messages were always positive. They didn’t want to force us to go home; I believe that in the beginning, the staff still thought there was a chance that things would go back to normal. While in hindsight, that was clearly impossible, it didn’t seem so cut and dry at the time. Morale was low and after awhile it felt like Peace Corps was stringing us along towards an inevitable decision. But it’s not a decision to be made lightly, so in the end, I guess it proved better to take one’s time than to make a rash and expensive decision.
The San house is not big, but at least we were allowed to go outside. Not everyone had that luxury. Volunteers in Bamako, for example, were not even allowed to leave the house for food because of gunshots, looting, and protests in the area. In San we passed the time by going to the pool, going to the San theater, biking to the stadium to play Frisbee, and eating. A lot. If it sounds like it wasn’t so bad, don’t be fooled. We weren’t getting much information from Peace Corps, either about the state of the nation or of Peace Corps. But what seemed like every five seconds someone would do a Google search for the latest information. For some, it was really important to know what was happening on any given day. I just tried to tune them out until we knew something concrete.
On April 1st, the volunteers in Mopti (the region just north of San) were sent to Bamako. Peace Corps had received news that the trouble was moving south, and that these volunteers were being moved as a precaution. Everyone received an email saying that all other volunteers could return to site for at least two days. That seemed wrong to me; my site was only 20 kilometers south of some Mopti volunteers. I didn’t want to travel on a bus on the road heading north, straight into the danger zone. I felt bad for not wanting to run back to site. But an hour later we got another call saying that our region was excluded from this offer, and that we still had to stay put. Problem solved. But it seemed to us that this call sealed our fate: the volunteers in safer regions were being allowed to return to site to say goodbye and collect their things. We weren’t being afforded this.
The next afternoon we got a call saying we needed to come into Bamako. Not every region got this call, so there was still some doubt. But we packed as much as we could and bought our bus tickets for the next day. We had one last meal together and took some group pictures the last minute. It still wasn’t official yet. Peace Corps vehicles picked us up from the bus station in Bamako, and within a few hours of our arrival, we got an email from our Country Director informing us that we were being evacuated. We stayed at our training center until Sunday, when we flew to Ghana for a transition conference. Peace Corps had to charter a plane for us because there were no commercial flights.
We stayed in Ghana for a week, preparing documents and filling out forms to officially end our services in Mali. For some of us, though, there was more to be done. In Mali, we were told that we would all be going straight home, and that if we wanted to continue our work with Peace Corps, we would have to reapply from home. But once we got to Ghana, our conference facilitator told us that the folks in Washington had found nearly 100 positions open to us around the world. I knew I wasn’t done with Peace Corps and wanted something similar to what I would have been doing in Bamako with USAID. Of these hundred positions, only one fit the bill for me. We applicants were dragged along by conference staff quite a bit, first being discouraged from applying at all because priority was being given to younger training groups; being given inaccurate job descriptions; and having to interview over the phone while we were supposed to be in general sessions, therefore missing out on something else important. But now here I am, writing this from the Peace Corps Rwanda training center. So it worked out, even if that week is something I hope to never repeat. Some volunteers chose positions requiring them to move to their new countries directly from Ghana; others went home for awhile. Some are starting their two years over, training and all. Some people are planning to serve with Peace Corps Response, a program for returned volunteers interested in working with Peace Corps for the short term, usually around six months. And me, I flew home for vacation, paid for by Peace Corps. I was in Minnesota for a month, and now the next step is officially underway. Mali’s next step remains uncertain.
While I struggled in village far more than the average volunteer, I also think I loved Mali more than the average volunteer. I am so glad for what I experienced. All of it. Except for maybe the stealing and mean people. But being gone has given me some clarity, confirmed some beliefs, and I have few to no regrets. Things that bothered me then still bother me now, which tells me that they were worth being bothered about in the first place. In the interest of honesty, I will say that I was counting down the days, mostly figuratively but somewhat literally, until I left Fangasso and started my new job in September. Too much had happened in village for me to be completely happy there anymore. It’s not the lack of running water or electricity or resources that gets volunteers down, but how they are treated by their communities. And for me, that wasn’t there. There is a lot I do not miss, but a lot that I do. I believe that my time in in Peace Corps benefitted me more than it did the people of Mali. And while Malians don’t believe you when you tell them that, but I think every volunteer would agree.
Maybe most of all, I miss my children. As much as the adults in our villages can’t understand why we left, the kids understand it even less. And I just hope that something I did with them, or taught them, or a song I sang with them, sticks with them. And even if they don’t make it to high school, or master English, or fully understand why they need to wash their hands more often, I hope that I made a difference to them. They certainly made a difference to me. And to all the Peace Corps Mali staff and the Returned PCVs of Mali: thank you. Couldn’t have done it without you.
I reread some of my earliest blog posts periodically during my service and saw how green I was; and while sometimes they make me cringe a little, or sound like they were written by a different person (or maybe I just wish they were), they show me just how far I’ve come. My time in Mali was certainly not easy. Some things I’m ready to put behind me and out of my mind. But as hard as things were, I was not ready to be done. To be done learning, teaching, trying, succeeding, and failing. I hope that Mali recovers soon and emerges stronger than it was before. I am glad that its people want better lives for themselves and are not willing to settle for less. Violence happens but I hope peace comes. It is Peace Corps, after all.
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